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Title: The Pickle Story (18 Dec 1961)
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| Episode cast overview: | |||
| Andy Griffith | ... | Andy Taylor | |
| Ron Howard | ... | Opie Taylor (as Ronny Howard) | |
| Don Knotts | ... | Barney Fife | |
| Frances Bavier | ... | Aunt Bee Taylor | |
| Hope Summers | ... | Clara Johnson | |
| Lee Krieger | ... | Motorist from Oregon | |
| Stanley Farrar | ... | County Fair Judge | |
| Warren Parker | ... | County Fair Judge | |
Aunt Bee is a wonderful cook but she just can't seem to make a tasty pickle. She's at it again, though, putting up another batch for the boys, who have never had the heart to tell her they taste terrible. Rather than choke down any more of her "kerosene cucumbers," Andy, Barney, and Opie substitute good store-bought pickles for her bad homemade ones. Having lost to Clara Johnson in the best pickles contest at the fair eleven years in a row, Bee thinks her latest batch is a winner and decides to enter. Knowing it would be unfair to the other contestants, especially Clara, for store-bought pickles to be entered, the boys must eat every one of the substitutes so Aunt Bee will have to make another batch of her own for the contest. Written by bobbymaxwell
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I rated this episode low - 4/10 - because so much of it goes against the established theme and facts of the entire series and therefore didn't sit right with me at all.
The most obvious one of all is the glaring anomaly that Aunt Bea is an excellent cook with all foods in all the other episodes of the series, except when she makes pickles (and marmalade, according to the brief epilogue). It doesn't fit with her natural ability as a great cook (which is a fact known by many people), that she fails miserably when it comes to making homemade pickles (and marmalade), so the entire episode breaks an important benchmark of the general continuity of the entire series.
Secondly, the inherent theme of the series is that honesty is the best policy - that cheating, lying, and fraud is wrong and bad and unacceptable no matter the reason behind it. Yet Andy not only shrugs off the deception of the elaborate scheme of switching Aunt Bea's pickles with store-bought ones, but he is the one who comes up with the idea in the first place, AND he involves his young son in the deception, which he didn't have to do and could possibly undo all of his previous teachings of honesty being the best policy in all situations.
Thirdly, the switcheroo with the store-bought pickles was too elaborate and far-fetched, especially considering that if and when Aunt Bea opened one of the canning jars with the store-bought pickles, she would notice that the lid wasn't tightly attached, which leads to another unlikely aspect of this lame episode: she apparently never tasted even one of her own pickles after she made them, which anyone making anything would normally do first thing after the cooking was completed.
Lastly, it gets too ridiculous and contrived - even as a sitcom - when Barney hands out the bad pickles as 'Safe Driver' awards to strangers driving by when he could've simply taken them to the dump, or thrown them out in a dumpster, or his own trash can at his home, or the one at the courthouse. It was a contrivance that totally fell flat and came off as silly and unnecessary.
So as much as I love the series and the general theme of it, the acting talent of the main characters, and most of the 200+ shows/episodes, I was dissatisfied and disappointed with this one.